Fierce Like a Roman - The 1st Hunger Games
by Elliot Rookard
Summary: This is the story of the very first Hunger Games, told from the point of view of District 4 tribute Kai, accompanied by her district partner Caspian. Set in a replica of the ancient Roman Colosseum and surrounding land, this arena sets up the gladiator like feel for the Games.
1. Chapter 1

_The tricky thing is yesterday we were just **children**, playing **soldiers**, just **pretending**, dreaming dreams with** happy endings**,_  
_in backyards, winning **battles** with the **wooden swords**, but now we've stepped into a** cruel world** where everybody stands and **keeps score**._

_-Eyes Open _Taylor Swift**  
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* * *

**Chapter 1  
**

_I don't want to die._

That thought races through my mind unheeded as the platform raises me up through a tube into the arena. I can't push the thought of possibly dying away, I can't swallow it and forget about it, not like I would with Mama's lobster stew which everyone pretends to love. Just thinking of Mama makes my heart squeeze and I feel my throat tighten as tears build up. But I will not let them fall. I cannot afford to cry.

The platform comes to a stop and I turn my focus outward, blinking several times to adjust my eyes to the shift in light. I ignore the tributes around me and instead focus on the arena. My eyes take in a huge structure of stone encircling us, with archways cut in it all the way around the structure like hundreds of doors. There is no roof. The ground looks like it's made of wood, covered in a light dusting of sand. Tiered rows of seats stretch all the way around, almost like an amphitheater and we're inside it. Almost as if we were in . . . My mind races back to the history lessons at school, the great amount of time we spent learning about North America before it became our country of Panem, but also some other countries we learned about, something else, this structure we're inside has a name . . . And then it hits me: the Colosseum. Surely not _the _Colosseum. It has to be a replica.

But I can't dwell on this long. I have 60 seconds to plan what I will do once the gong sounds. I dare not run to the silver metal structure in the center, dwarfed by the surrounding Colosseum walls. It is the Cornucopia they said would be there with all the supplies you could ever hope to need for survival inside and around it - but won't everyone be trying to get there? It would be like a suicide mission; once the stronger ones get hold of a weapon, everyone else within range is done for. But I can't just immediately run out of this place, I need to leave with _something_. I spot a tan colored tarp and a heavy-duty metal bow with a case of arrows resting on top of the tarp to presumably keep it from blowing away. They are the closet things to me. I'm no professional with a bow, but I can make do. I can learn to shoot. I will have to grab those and run. That is, if someone doesn't get to them first.

Next, where do I run to? I don't know what's outside those stone walls. It would be easy enough to dash through an archway, but then what? I glance behind me, careful not to lose my balance. The last thing I want to do is step off my pedestal and be blown to bits by the mines around us. The people back in the training center informed us that the mines were only to ensure the tributes stayed on their pedestals for the length of the countdown, then they were immediately disabled when the gong sounded. What if they were faulty? What if the Capitol was lying and as soon as the gong sounded and we all stepped off, they wouldn't just blow us all up and get it over with? That would be one frightening message to the districts.

Another thought also occurs to me - what if someone were to deliberately step off, commit suicide? It might be better than waiting for your imminent death to come later on in the arena. But would someone actually do that?

As if in answer to my question, an explosion goes off from the other side of the Cornucopia. I don't know if it was an accident or suicide, and I see bits of wood and chunks of something I don't wish to think about fly into the air, only to descend and shower down on the tributes near it. This, in turn, triggers another explosion. I imagine every person cowering on their pedestals and covering their heads and ears, a few probably deaf if they were too close to the explosion. Thank goodness the Cornucopia blocked most of the scene from my view.

My heart pounds wildly in my chest, triple the speed of the countdown. 19, 18, 17 . . .

_I don't want to die in this cursed arena._

It strikes me that that thought is unprecedented. Another numbing reminder that I am the first to participate in these Games. One of twenty four of the Capitol's guinea pigs, if you will. I hate the Capitol. Everyone does. That became apparent when the districts lashed out, rebelled against them, and now they are paying for it by witnessing their children fighting each other to the death. A televised event. Sick.

As the countdown strikes 10, 9, 8, I feel like I might lose the meager breakfast of one boiled egg and some cheese that I managed to get down before making the trip in the hovercraft to the arena. And then too soon it comes:

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

_Dong._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Chaos. Utter chaos. I hesitant a moment as the tributes around me leap from their pedestals and sprint for the Cornucopia, kicking up dust behind them. Someone beside me stumbles as she steps off her platform and hits the ground face first. I see another person - a boy - running as fast as he can away from the Cornucopia with no supplies or weapons whatsoever. That can't be me, and I make up my mind to get those supplies and bow I spotted. All this in a few seconds.

I make a beeline for the tarp and bow and arrows, pumping my legs faster than I ever have before. I can make it, I can do this. I'm almost there, trying not to look ahead of me at the bloodbath happening at the Cornucopia and only focusing on the tarp and bow and arrows, the tarp and bow and arrows, the tarp and bow and-

I am knocked to the ground by an unknown force, so close yet so far away from the tarp and bow and arrows. Gasping to catch my breath, I kick wildly at the person who knocked me down. I feel a hot rush of pain in my calf, and I realize my attacker is holding a knife and slashing as wildly as I am kicking. The cut is deep and I feel the sticky blood run down my leg and into my shoe. I try to get away, but he's locked onto one of my ankles and is ready to stab my chest with the knife. I scream and kick with my other foot, kick after kick to his stomach, groin, neck, then finally his head. He doesn't have me pinned down very well and I wonder why he's allowing me to kick him like this and why he doesn't fight back harder, and that's when I notice a terrible gash across his chest. Why is he fighting me if he's as good as dead himself?

He makes a stab for me and I'm able to roll out of the way, but I won't be able to get away with that again. His face is contorted in a mask of pain and rage and he screams something unintelligible as I continue my kicking, like he's so frustrated that I can't be an easy kill for him, but then I feel my boot connect with bone. There is a crack and my attacker falls limply to the ground. I grab the knife from his hand and that's when I get a good look at him.

He's the District 2 boy, a husky boy who I think I would not have been able to defeat had there not been a rush of adrenaline coursing through my body. But then I realize a blow to his head with my boot was not what killed him-there is a spear in his back and blood dripping out of his mouth. I scramble backward at the shock of it, then quickly shake my head and get up. I can't dwell on his death, I can't look for the person who killed him. That person might be back to collect their spear, now adorned with a trophy of their victim's blood.

Jumping over the husky boy's body, I scoop up the tarp and swing the case of arrows over my shoulder. I grab the bow and nock an arrow, then finally allow myself to look up, to study the scene at the Cornucopia.

I don't see my district partner Caspian anywhere. He must have grabbed whatever was closest to him and gotten out of there. Like I should be doing. But I can't help myself from surveying all the dead tributes' bodies littering the ground. There are too many bodies, and I think I might be sick, so I stumble backward and try to run in the opposite direction, but a girl has blocked my way. I don't know where she came from, I haven't exactly been very focused and it's a wonder I'm not dead yet. But then my eyes fall on the knife in her hand and I think that this is it, I will die at the hand of this girl.

"You killed him!" she screams, and lunges at me. It takes me a moment to realize she means the District 2 boy.

"I didn't kill him, I swear!" I choke as I fall to the ground - again. I hold out my bow as she drops on top of me. She spews blood and goes limp so suddenly that I wonder if another person killed her for me like the District 2 boy. I push her body off of me and that's when I realize she landed on the arrow nocked in my bow. My eyes linger on the wound, right in her stomach. I feel her blood all over my face, and the blood from my calf is still gushing. I have to turn over to vomit; this is too much.

I can't afford to recover, and I get to my feet as quickly as I can, taking the bow in my hand with the arrow still nocked but inside the District 2 girl's stomach. I gently pull the bow away and leave the arrow-I can't bear to take it out of her body. I stumble over a few feet to where the tarp blew and pick it up, hastily folding it as I run. Run from the Colosseum, from the Cornucopia, from the blood, from the dead bodies, from the girl I have killed. Running blindly. I am scared, so scared. I have become just what the Capitol wanted me to become and just what I wanted to avoid becoming - a murderer.


End file.
